Rugby Australia have withdrawn their $1.6 million offer for Roosters star Angus Crichton after internal backlash.
RA tabled the two-year deal worth $800,000 per season less than two weeks ago but it’s now off the table, as first reported by The Roar’s Christy Doran.
Australia are in the midst of a disastrous World Cup campaign where they will almost certainly fail to make the knockout stages for the first time in history.
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The Wallabies have made at least the quarterfinals in every World Cup since its inception in 1987, but following disastrous losses to Fiji and Wales the national team is in crisis.
Tensions were already high amid Australia’s shocking 2023, and the reports of the big-money offer for Crichton went down like a lead balloon with the game’s stakeholders.
Australian players were already disgruntled over RA’s decision to hand 20-year-old Roosters winger Joseph Suaalii a three-year deal worth $5 million.
After three months of negotiations between RA and Crichton – where multiple deadlines were missed – the parties have ended talks, according to Doran.
Crichton has another 12 months to run on his Roosters deal which is reportedly worth around $675,000 next year.
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But the backrower’s form has dipped in 2023 and been well below the level that earned him Kangaroos selection this time last year.
Crichton won the Rugby League World Cup with Australia last November but missed the first two months of the 2023 NRL season after he was hospitalised for mental health reasons.
The Roosters had given Crichton – who is currently in France watching the Rugby World Cup – permission to negotiate with RA.
